Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[me <ken@wildlanders.com>]

Gail,

You are spot on. I worked for the US Forest Service for many years and 
the premittee fees are so low as to be a root cause of the problem. 
Ranchers are being subsidized indirectly by cheap access to forage bases 
on our public lands. I actually agree with those low fees as long as it 
does not cause environmental harm and the cattle ranchers are ethical in 
the numbers of cows, how they manage them, and in respect to the other 
uses of our public lands (recreation for one). But unfortunately, the 
ranchers have the mentality of "my cows come first", "I lived here 
before you", and otherwise a complete disrespect for the idea of PUBLIC 
land ownership.

I think what we will need to do is zone areas on a much larger scale. 
Right now we zone areas within counties or municipalities. Rather, we 
need to zone whole counties or regions somehow under state or even 
federal zoning laws. This would keep the urbanization at bay and allow 
the traditions and agriculture to survive.

And the survival of agriculture is important. It is a security issue as 
we now see in some countries that cannot feed their own people and have 
become too dependent upon food imports. This precept should support and 
drive this larger zoning effort I mention above. Unfortunately, it is 
too late for our area where this issue is being played out.

-Ken


> Excellent comments, Ken.
>
> The only thing I would add to what you have written is that only 3 or 4% of
> the beef raised in this country graze on these arid western public lands.
>
> It wouldn't hurt the beef supply one bit if public land grazing was stopped
> tomorrow.  Stopping grazing would benefit these lands owned by all
> American's but terribly abused by these corporate welfare ranchers.
>
> And lastly, you can't feed a hamster for what the government charges these
> ranchers per AUM on Forest Service and BLM managed lands.  State owned lands
> usually charge more per AUM, a cow and a calf per month.
>
> Gail